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Thursday, August 27, 2009

A Note On Teddy Kennedy

I have absolutely nothing good to say about Ted Kennedy, so out of respect for the dead I will refrain from saying anything of a personal nature about him at all. Even though I had absolutely no regard for the man, out of Christian Charity I am greatly concerned about his soul and even though it will be very hard for me to do, I will pray for him at Mass this coming Sunday.

On a more public note, I will say that the media does make me sick the way they fawn over this man as if he lived some tremendous and heroic life of public service. Such sentiment I think says so much more about the very low state of modern society than it does about the man himself. I believe the last day or so is just that much more concrete proof that our society has been corrupted beyond human repair and that we very well may have passed Sodom and Gomorrah. Modern society is so diabilically disoriented that it is a wonder why God allows us to conintue.

And on a particular Catholic note, I thought I would point out the following from the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

Can. 1184

§1. Unless they gave some signs of repentance before death, the following must be deprived of ecclesiastical funerals:

1/ notorious apostates, heretics, and schismatics;2/ those who chose the cremation of their bodies for reasons contrary to Christian faith;3/ other manifest sinners who cannot be granted ecclesiastical funerals without public scandal of the faithful.

§2. If any doubt occurs, the local ordinary is to be consulted, and his judgment must be followed.

Even though recent history within the American Church gives us absolutely no reason to, I guess we should all give the local bishop in Boston the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is exercising his just authority on this matter with the knowledge that Ted Kennedy had a death bed conversion. If not, I would just ask for whom was this code provision written to apply to if not to a man like Ted Kennedy?

13 Comments:

Absolutely! It's been sickening to read the plaudits and listen to the lies about this "great human being". I hope very much that he repented before he died. May God have mercy on his soul. He definitely needs our prayers; I don't think he had much of an example of Catholicism in his life, and this may go some way in his defence; God willing.

Anita, Considering that he fought till his dying day for obama's "health" care plan... which guaranteed abortion on demand in all trimesters, I find it hard to believe that he showed any repentance at all.

Believe me, I'm no fan of Teddy Kennedy. (See today's post on the subject.) He's the whole reason I left the Democrat party when I was a kid. But at least one canonist thinks he cleared the canonical hurdle for a Catholic burial.

I certainly hope for him what I hope for myself and mine: that he will have cleared more than just the canonical hurdles. God is not fooled.

As for public signs of repentance, Obama purportedly delivered a personal note to the Pope during his visit in July from the "swimmer" himself. No one knows what it says, except the Pope, of course. My guess is it wasn't a request for absolution.

Hi, everybody, a friend in Canada just sent me the Spirit and Life Newsletter written by Fr. Thomas Euteneuer and published by Human Life International. It's excellent, and I recommend it highly. We should (I think must) hope he repented before he died, and I will pray for his soul . . . but all the same, when I think of him the thing I remember most is Chappaquiddick.